SWEET TOMATO SPELT MUFFINS

What was it that gave madness away, the pirate shoes or the wandering aimlessly amongst Egyptian mummies and hippo statuettes or the improvised escapes or the mindless frauds or the frozen cereal or the dragon fruit and turnip diet; but what is all but crazy, I swear, is returning to warm foothills, small towns; and breathing a sigh of relief; and making sweet tomato muffins, as tomatoes are fruits like any other, but sometimes you just very simply forget.

ESPRESSO SWIRL BISCUITS

There’s a time for drama, anger, deafening rants, unkindness, hacking (or murder); for making soap-opera scenes on a busy street at lunch time in the presence of a coachload of elderly tourists from Shropshire; for judging books by their cover, being scared and selecting your new self-destruction method of choice.

But I want this to be that time when the sky splits and rain pours down on one side of the office only; a time for looking out for bells when they ring, for having no direction and following your own feet, for finding strength, for tattoos you can't hide, for trying, for acceptance, for more or less feeling less incomplete; and for all those things that come about that spiral and twist and swirl and make your head spin but then one day just surpisingly fall into place.

PEACH & GINGER SPELT MUFFINS

I spent the day reading Italian recipe books from the late nineteenth century and baking. Can you think of a better way of celebrating Muffin Sunday? I’m sure you can’t. Happy Muffin Sunday everyone. After banana and strawberry and lime and coconut, here’s a version with summery fruit, spelt goodness and a hint of spice. You can munch on these whilst I try to veganise a 1909 cake recipe that calls for 8 eggs and half a kilo of lard.